Dystopian advertising
Driving through downtown Denver today, I came across a billboard that read: "Katie steals to feed her kids. You can change her story." An advertisement for Volunteers of America, the sign reads like a dystopian prognostication of a society ruined by circumstances beyond one's control.
Unfortunately, as their Website illustrates, this is one of many billboards in a nation-wide campaign to guilt-trip Americans into volunteering to help the disadvantaged, the indignant, and the impoverished. Other like-minded socialist and/or Christian organizations probably applaud such statements, fearing that without the assistance of their fellow men, an individual will rot in disease-ridden, poverty-stricken neighborhoods. After all, who will protect a woman from a man who abuses her? Who will feed the hungry? Who will cloth the naked? Who will take a man's life into his hands for safe keeping?
At the risk of sounding like a uncaring, misogynistic imbecile who lacks even an ounce of compassion, is it too much to suggest people look out for themselves?
Independence is a hallmark of virtue and is to be celebrated. For a man to stand naked and expect others to cloth him, for a woman to stand in a line and expect others to feed her, for a parent to expect others to raise his child, for a wife to expect others to force her to leave her abusive husband, for a human being to expect any man but himself to control his life: these are merely pathways on the road to serfdom, to human interdependence, to a world where man neglects himself in favor of the group, the commune, the collective. For any grown man who neglects his own life, any man who places his work, his volition, his very ability to survive into the hands of another is nothing more than an immoral leech. Living a life as man qua man means living for oneself, for his own survival, for his own liberty.
Unfortunately, as their Website illustrates, this is one of many billboards in a nation-wide campaign to guilt-trip Americans into volunteering to help the disadvantaged, the indignant, and the impoverished. Other like-minded socialist and/or Christian organizations probably applaud such statements, fearing that without the assistance of their fellow men, an individual will rot in disease-ridden, poverty-stricken neighborhoods. After all, who will protect a woman from a man who abuses her? Who will feed the hungry? Who will cloth the naked? Who will take a man's life into his hands for safe keeping?
At the risk of sounding like a uncaring, misogynistic imbecile who lacks even an ounce of compassion, is it too much to suggest people look out for themselves?
Independence is a hallmark of virtue and is to be celebrated. For a man to stand naked and expect others to cloth him, for a woman to stand in a line and expect others to feed her, for a parent to expect others to raise his child, for a wife to expect others to force her to leave her abusive husband, for a human being to expect any man but himself to control his life: these are merely pathways on the road to serfdom, to human interdependence, to a world where man neglects himself in favor of the group, the commune, the collective. For any grown man who neglects his own life, any man who places his work, his volition, his very ability to survive into the hands of another is nothing more than an immoral leech. Living a life as man qua man means living for oneself, for his own survival, for his own liberty.
posted by Tobin Spratte at 1:57 PM
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